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Explore the Alternatives

Click the image to the right to view the Count the Costs options and alternatives briefing.

For over 50 years the punitive enforcement model of the war on drugs has dominated drug policy. As detailed elsewhere on this site, this approach has failed to achieve its stated goals, instead generating huge costs in terms of undermining public health and human rights, creating crime, fuelling stigma and discrimination, damaging the environment, and creating obstacles to development and security – all at a huge financial cost. Even a cursory evaluation of the past 50 years demonstrates a meaningful exploration of alternative policy approaches is not only rational, but an urgent necessity.

There are a range of alternative policy models available from increasingly punitive "zero-tolerance" enforcement, through various harm reduction strategies and options for decriminalisation of possession and use, to models for legal regulation of drug production and supply. Whilst some of these have been explored, others remain largely speculative, but clearly different policy models will be needed to address the challenges of different drugs, populations and environments.

The Count the Costs project is not prescriptive about which approach, or combination of approaches, will work best in any given scenario. Rather, as a group of individuals and NGOs with shared concerns around the failings of the war on drugs, we are seeking to encourage a meaningful exploration of the options, informed by the best possible evidence and analysis. This section of the website is a collection of resources that can help inform that process by outlining the options and supporting evidence.

Suggestions for resources to build up this collection are very much welcomed.

A report from the Health Officers Council of British Columbia which explores how a public health approach to drug control could prevent and reduce the harms attributable to currently illegal drugs, as well as prevent and further reduce the harms from tobacco and alcohol.

A King County Bar Association report which finds that a new legal framework of state-level regulatory control over psychoactive substances will better serve the objectives of reducing crime, improving public order, enhancing public health, protecting children and wisely using scarce public resources, than current drug policies.

A high-level and significant critique of current drug policy from the UK's Home Affairs Select Committee. The range of expert witnesses who provided evidence to the committee hearing, as well as the scope and detail of the report, is unprecedented.

An academic article assessing the effects of Switzerland's policy of heroin prescription. The authors find that the measure has resulted in large reductions in both the use of illicit drugs and in drug-related crime.